In a typical mortgage processing system, a branch facility, otherwise known as a lock-box, receives payments from the mortgagees or customers and performs an initial amount of processing on each payment. This processing includes the scanning of a payment coupon and an enclosed check and storing the data associated with each payment in batch form in a database. At the end of the day, the lock-box facility transmits the batch payment data to a central processing facility. A mortgage processing system may have a plurality of lock-boxes with each lock-box responsible for payments within a certain geographical region and each lock-box transmitting its batch payment data to the central facility at the end of the day.
The central processing facility receives the payment data in batch form from the various lock-boxes and performs batch processing. More specifically, the central facility updates a set of master files by making appropriate changes to the principal, interest, and escrow for each account. The number of accounts updated in one day can easily approach twenty to thirty thousand, whereby the central facility expends an enormous amount of time performing the batch processing of the payment data.
In addition to the batch processing of payment data, the central processing facility performs some additional functions. For instance, the central facility also provides normal users of the system with on-line access to account information in the master files. These users need to access the master files in real-time in order to provide customer services and to provide other types of mortgage services. Because the system provides these services to the various users in real-time, the central facility must perform the batch processing of the payment data after the normal users are finished with the system at the end of the day. The central facility is unable to perform the batch processing during the day since the batch processing would tie up the master files and present unacceptable delays to the normal users of the system in their attempts to gain access to the master files.
Because the batch processing of the payment occurs at the end of the day, a delay of twenty four hours or more can occur between the time that a lock-box receives a customer's payment through the mail and the time that the central facility posts the payment to the customer's account. This delay can be especially problematic when the lock-box receives the payment on or just prior to the payment deadline since the system might erroneously assess a late payment charge to the customer. The delay is also problematic in that normal users providing customer service and other mortgage services might not have the most up-to-date account information. As a result, the normal users would be unable to reconcile the account information that they access from the master files with the customer's own personal records. The conventional payment processing system therefore suffers from a disadvantage that payments may not be posted until a relatively long delay after a customer deposits a payment with a lock-box or other similar type of receiving facility.
Another common problem facing batch processing of payment data is that the batch processing can adversely impact the normal day-time on-line functions. When the central processing facility receives a large amount of batch data, which occurs near the mortgage payment due date, the amount of time required to process the batch data significantly increases. During these heavy load times, the central facility might have to delay the normal users from obtaining on-line access to the account data until the central facility has finished the batch processing. This added processing time is highly detrimental to the system since the on-line operations, such as customer service and other mortgage services, are temporarily suspended.
These problems in batch processing are not limited to just the batch processing of mortgage payments but apply equally as well to other types of batch processing. For example, in addition to mortgage payments, payment processing systems suffer similar problems in delayed postings with car payments, credit card payments, and foreclosure related transactions. Furthermore, the problems with delayed postings are not special to payment processing systems but may be encountered in any type of batch data processing system.
A previous processing system developed by the assignee of the present invention attempted to address some of these problems. The previous system was a BSS processing system used to process mobile home transactions. The system had a mover for transferring files, a router for assigning transactions to a driver, and a driver for processing the transaction. The BSS system had a monitor that tracked the completion of large bulk units of work. For instance, the handler might initially send two hundred transactions to be processed in conjunction with other on-line processing. At each minute, the handler would ensure that the system maintained this bulk amount of work by supplying additional transactions equal in number to the number of transactions processed. Thus, if the handler detected that forty transactions of the original two hundred still need to be processed, the handler would supply an additional one hundred sixty transactions to maintain the two hundred back-log of work. The monitor used to control the speed of the system suffered from a disadvantage that the speed control was very slow to respond to environmental changes. For instance, the system would respond very slowly to any drop in processing from normal on-line users of the system and would likewise react very slowly to any increase in demand from these normal users. As a result, the processing of the transactions in the on-line environment presented a significant mount of interference with the normal users of the system.
Thus, a need exists for a system or method for processing batch data which reduces the delays in posting updated information. Furthermore, a need exists for a system or method for processing batch data which reduces the amount of adverse effects on any on-line processing.